NYC

Remember that snowy night we went to a party in Bed Stuy? We cross dressed. We confessed. We digressed. Your name was Roxanne and Jasmine and Shealah. After some local freaks shoveled your car out of its parallel parking spot at three am (I had given them two twenties and wondered if that was enough), I invited you back to the Upper West Side where we climbed the dog shitty snow piles while we talked about girl bands and poetry and Mediterranean cuisine. We laughed and felt each other shake with my arm looped around your bruised elbow. I called you my African Queen. You said you wanted to dominate a white girl. Soon, morning broke over Central Park, spreading its warm curves over our roof deck. We sipped champagne, and you told me the truth. Your real name was Naomi Yvonne Carr. I screamed your name with joy, "Naomi Yvonne Carr!" And the sweet sound stirred over the snow drifts covering the parked cars on 73rd Street (We had re-named it Seventy Turd Street). You told me you were homeless. Your father disowned you and his grandchildren. Your men all left you broken and blue. Where are you now, Namoi? You still sipping cold coffee at the Galaxy Diner on Ninth Avenue, waiting for Paul Auster to leave his gorgeous wife for you? You know he would if he got one whiff of your bliss balmy fragrance. You'd set him to thinking. Because how a homeless woman with four children can keep herself smelling like jasmine flowers is still a deep mystery to me.

I never told you the truth. To this day, I do not know whose apartment that was on the Upper West Side. I was just grateful, that freezing cold night, those conveniently absent tenants had forgotten to lock their door.

Radiate

We the people radiate. The warrior rebels radiate. The masses radiate. The monarchs radiate. The refugees radiate. The Resting radiate. The survivors radiate. The spectators radiate. The reporters radiate. The rock stars radiate. The investors radiate. The infirm radiate. The poor radiate. The performers radiate. The oilmen radiate. The oppressed radiate. The diplomats radiate. The despots radiate. The healthy radiate. The hateful radiate. The envious radiate. The envied radiate.

Wonder why, when children cry, we say of them that they are having a “melt down.”

Children radiate. Naughty children radiate. Nice children radiate.

Earth pulses one warm, global Radiation Nation.

Yes! Keep radiating, raiding, rationing, reckoning, wrecking, wreaking, working, weeping, rocking, remembering, rolling, roiling, wrestling, rat racing, reducing, reusing, recycling, reeling, repeating, retching, rescuing, worrying, weighing, warring, worshipping, writing, risking, reveling, running, and readying for Rest.

You radiate. You radiate. You radiate!

Mama O'Rama

Mama O'Rama has ten children.

She knows exactly what to do

When Mama O'Rama's baby cries, Mama O'Rama rocks him back to sleep in the family heirloom rocking chair.

When Little Buck complains he needs a playmate, Mama O'Rama plays Trainwreck with one hand and rocks her baby back to sleep.

When Becky needs some money, Mama O'Rama reaches in her purse to jingle some change with one hand, plays Trainwreck with the other hand, and rocks Baby Buddy back to sleep.

When Benny needs a diaper change, Mama O'Rama stomps down her foot and uses her nimble toes to change the diaper, reaches in her purse with one hand, plays Trainwreck with the other hand, and rocks Baby Buddy back to sleep.

When Bonnie needs to eat dinner, Mama O'Rama stomps down her second foot and uses her nimble toes to stir fry some veggies, stomps down the first foot to change Benny's diaper, reaches in her purse with one hand, plays Trainwreck with the other, all while she rocks Baby Buddy back to sleep.

When Billy asks for help with homework, Mama O'Rama quizzes Billy on spelling, stomps down one foot to cook, stomps down the other foot to diaper, reaches in her purse with one hand, plays Trainwreck with the other as she rocks Baby Buddy back to sleep.

When Bart asks for a ride to the movies, Mama O'Rama says, "No."

When Bessy needs help getting dressed, Mama O'Rama grows hairy, wild-thing arms out of the top of her head, (Lucky for Mama O'Rama, these two huge, muscular, beastly, lovey dovey, teddy bear, busy strongman arms grow straight out of the top of her head whenever she may need them. It's quite convenient and reliable but doesn't allow her to wear pretty hats!). With these hairy arms, Mama O'Rama buttons silver buttons down Bessy's back, says, "No ride to the movies," quizzes Billy on spelling, stomps down her one foot to cook, stomps down her other foot to diaper, reaches in her purse to jiggle change with one hand, plays Trainwreck with the other as she rocks Baby Buddy back to sleep.

When Bella needs to hide behind her for protection, Mama O'Rama spreads her wings to cover the girl from the pouring rain, uses her hairy arms to fasten silver buttons, says, "No ride to the movies," quizzes Billy on spelling, stomps down her one foot to cook, stomps down her other foot to diaper, reaches in her purse with one hand, plays Trainwreck with the other as she rocks Baby Buddy back to sleep.

When Buzz needs a shoulder to cry on, Mama O'Rama offers both of hers, spreads her wings to cover Bella from the pouring rain, uses her hairy arms to fasten Bessy's buttons, says, "No ride to the movies," quizzes Billy on spelling, stomps down her one foot to cook dinner, stomps down the other foot to diaper, reaches in her purse to jiggle change with one hand, plays Trainwreck with the other hand as she rocks Baby Buddy back to sleep.

When Bernard asks Mama O'Rama if she needs some help, Mama O'Rama says, "Yes. Please."

Mama O'Rama thinks it somewhat disconcerting that she has had to give birth nine more times before Bernard, her first born, finally offered to lend her a hand.

She gave birth nine more times just to teach Big Brother Bernard a good, solid life lesson, and do you know what?

Mama O'Rama is certain that she showed him.

The Wiggly Bridge

Lisa Field is a horticulturist, a renowned conservationist, and a revered meditation teacher. She never smashes insects, never curses, and never needs to go on a diet.

One day Lisa was working in her garden, minding her own business, when two little girls popped up out of nowhere and started tossing fistfuls of dirt at her. Lisa, having once been a mean girl herself, recognized this mischief and evil laughter and knew the girls were really crying for help.

“Where’s your mother?”

The girls stomped all over Lisa’s succulents.

“Mommy drinks Daddy’s booze and tells us to run along.”

Ever since then, whenever the girls show up, Lisa takes them with her on her assignments as City Gardener. This is her effort to save these children from Nature-deficit Disorder.

Today, they are planting poinsettias in the Kate Sessions Canyon. But first they must cross the infamous Spruce Street Bridge, a rickety suspension footbridge.

The locals call it the Wiggly Bridge.

Rumor has it that not one single soul has ever made it across that shaky bridge without getting a Wiggles tune stuck in her head.

Lisa knows that these children rave on about that nursery-rhyming band from Australia, The Wiggles. When they get to the Wiggly Bridge, the girls lean far over the suspension wires, stretching their necks to see if Sam, Murray, Anthony, or Jeff may be playing hide and seek behind the queen palms.

The girls start to sing, “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.”

Originally, Lisa had intended to walk slowly with the girls over the bridge, stopping now and then to point out and name different species of flora in the canyon far below. There’s twisted juniper. And there’s a blue cypress. There’s star jasmine. Lisa has always yearned to walk over all the Earth’s trails, paying homage to mother nature by teaching young children the names of all the wild things. Lisa wishes she could have children of her own. Alas, her partner, Rachel, does not want children.

Lisa could start to brood, or she could participate in the hot potato, cold spaghetti, banana mash dance steps the girls are doing to make the bridge sway and wobble. Lisa chooses to join the fun and quickly finds herself singing, “Dance the night away!” Her throat is a wild song, and the bridge is their perch. Lisa and these lost girls are birds on a wire. Lisa realizes she will need to teach them to fly.

Now, Lisa thinks she should be less concerned about saving children from Nature-deficit disorder and more concerned with recovering herself from Wiggle Mania.

Listening to Mardi Gras Playlist on Jazz 88 & Making Love in the VooDoo Garden

He played his tight swinging bass vamp all over her ass. He banged chords, repetitions, and trills all over her thighs. With his lyric stuffed in her mouth, she sang these words, "I'm a woman. I could make love to a crocodile. I'm a woman. I can sing the blues. I'm a woman. I can crush stone with a pin. I'm an earth shaker."

The neighbors in the next town felt their coital clamor.

He gave this one performance all of his best crying, growling, writhing strength. She repaid him with a cursing moaning hummingbird buzzing multi-phonics. Their ugly lovemaking was the envy of all beasts.

Their whiskey dreams jammed all through that night.

The next days of solos. She never heard his arpeggiated mournful glissandi. He never heard her sad trilling aria melting into blue arpeggios.

She thought souls slow lulls.
He thought so long soul lows.

Silently, they had promised that they'd meet again at that craggy coast around midnight of the year 2020.

He promises to thrill her G String with his wicked vibratos.

She promises to wreak orchestral havoc on his upright bass.

Sons of Literary Men Who Pump Iron or Parenting and Body Building or My Mom Can Beat Up Your Dad

There's Andre Dubus III. There's Samuel Fussell. There's Paul Solotaroff. What do these men have in common? They are all sons of literary men. These sons have all written about, or "confessed," that having fathers who devoted their lives to letters, as opposed to devoting their lives to their sons, helped to rear sons who devoted themselves to body building.

Recently I heard a little story about a mother who devotes herself to writing. She writes beautiful little entries in her blog, on facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, MamaBuzz, and of course Twitter. She never feeds her children. The children go about plundering the yard, hunting for rodents and collecting berries; they play happy, unsupervised games and boast about how surviving orphanhood only makes them stronger.

This mother asserts hers is a superior parenting style. She is sure her children will grow up to be gold-medal Olympians.

And the world seems to agree with Mama Tweet because she's won a grant and a stipend and an advance to write a book.

Coming this May, the Raising Rascals Press will unveil Mama Tweet's book on parenting. The title of her masterpiece is SONS OF LITERARY WOMEN HAVE MORE MUSCLE THAN SONS OF LITERARY MEN.

I think they're all just a bunch of sons of bitches. I pump iron. My mom drove an ice cream truck while my dad stayed home with us six kids until he got MS and we had to care for him. I pump iron because I like to watch women in the gym. I bring my kids with me while I lift. They like to shout, "Go Big Daddy, Go!" Women at the gym get a big kick out of that. Shows them all how fertile I am. I hate to brag, but I'm HUGE.

Why Write Flash Fiction

Why?

There is a lot of advice and analysis and chit chat out there in print and in cyberspace about the phenomenon of flash fiction.

Just keep in mind, one need not get alarmed.

It is true that writing or reading flash fiction may or may not cause any one of the following: a collective shortening of the attention span, improved love life, loss of appetite, better understanding of the human condition, bed wetting, and fainting spells.

Recently, I came across a website that offers advice to writers about writing query letters to agents and editors. So the formula dictates that a writer give a synopsis of her book in the second paragraph of a query letter. Agents realize this is not an easy task, and whoever wrote this website advice says that as agents, "We don't envy you."

Today's Literary Agent wisdom claims that "Summing up your entire book in an intriguing single paragraph is worse than a root canal."

Summing up may feel like a root canal to those who don't write flash fiction, but for those who do--you know who you are--summing up is a walk in the park.

That's why.

Write on.

Dear Agents, You can envy writers now.

Writing Prompt

Write about a guy who is enrolled in a creative writing program who maintains a website on which he posts daily writing prompts. Write about how this guy searches the web for ideas for writing prompts; but, instead of finding writing prompts, he finds a website that urges its visitors to adopt stray cats. Write about how the guy gets distracted and adopts a cat to give Mom for her birthday because she's so lonely since Dad passed. Write about how the cat wrecks Mom's house and brings in all kinds of weird rodents, birds, and odd critters that it kills in the canyon behind Mom's house. Write about how the cat, named Miss Priss, brings furry wild things, all gooey and limp, into her house and leaves them piling up in front of the refrigerator. Write about Mom being a retired paleontologist, and how she recognizes one of the creatures the cat drags in as a prehistoric species whose existence is hotly disputed amongst the brightest scientists. Write about how Mom phones her son, and they have a conversation. Write that conversation. After that conversation, write about how the guy who is enrolled in a creative writing program drops out of the writing program and enrolls in a paleontologist program. Meanwhile, Mom attends her very first support group meeting for substance abusers. Write about how Mom slowly realizes she must stop deceiving her son, and not just about Dad's passing but about lots of other things too. Write about lots of other things, too.

After reading Aimee Bender and Listening to Radio Head

There is a girl who is good with a needle.

She embroiders words upon her underwear. Intimate words.

This girl notices the boy who sings in a high school band. The band performs covers of Radio Head songs. The boy sings to the girl, "I'm a creep. I'm a weirdo."

The girl takes up her needle and needles the word SPECIAL onto her crotchless panties. She carves the word WEIRDO hidden somewhere in all that lace.

She seam stresses every curve and line of every letter of every lyric.

When she is done, she shows the skirt to the band boy. He casually strums his guitar, acts as if he doesn't notice; or, he doesn't get it. She is scared.

She tears off the skirt. She crumbles the skirt. She throws the skirt, her words, into a dumpster that floats in a rocky river.

He trembles. She thinks that a male person's trembling is eternally meaningful.

She dances before the band man, who maybe thinks she is not just another girl. She turns. She aches strange.

She drinks wine and grows sad.

She writes letters.

He thinks?

The night ends with a dream that he uses a strong, strange, hairy arm to pull her out from a deep, dark spinning bowl.

She feels? She wants hairy arms.

She thinks it must be so warm to have body hair to stay warm through the long winter.

She moves to a town in California where the word SWEATER is foreign, quaint.

She drinks wine and sunshine. She yields. She tosses away all knits and underwear. She yawns. She yearns.

For the needle, for hair, for nothing.

Sunshine and freeways uninspire her.

She gets a tatoo on her labia--the words WHAT THE HELL'M I DOIN' HERE?

The Coaster train whistles by. She's got a phony ticket east. She sits in a depot, staring down a glass of wine through the eye of a needle. A little boy teases her with his loaded squirt gun.

She embroiders the word BANG on her cocktail dress, smack dab in the middle of the the cock's tail. She loops her arm through the arm of her date to the company party, her bodybuilder.

She remembers, ages ago, giving a blow job to a disguised rock star in Strawberry Fields. But now she sips petite Shirah from Los Gatos and writes I DON'T BELONG HERE on the walls of the setting sun.

Sunset, outside these windows on Guy Street, looks like a trembling man before he fucks his passion. Hard, pink, rippling and brilliant.

When dark settles over this much beauty, everyone is relieved to fall asleep.

The Omega Book Club Reads TINKERS

Mercury liked the protagonist, George. Venus liked the floating Indian head, the New England lore. Mars liked the mergings of time and character and dream. It is still ambiguous what Uno, Dos, and Tres thought of this month's book club pick. The story wasn't funny. A reader had to work hard, to think how to read a book while being struck by lightening. What was the plot? Whose Point of View now? And now? And now? Finally, what do we make of the end?

Paul Harding's novel won the Pulitzer Prize. Everyone in the Omega Book Club wondered why Paul's book won while their own book did not.

The Omega Book Club is for losers. To be accepted into the Omega Book Club, you must love Life and Letters, and you must have entered the race and lost. The club chooses only those books that have won major literary prizes. Club meetings involve getting together to boo and hiss, to cry and rub noses with The Nobodies. The group is full of loopy creatures known for their farawayness. All members have joined the club under assumed names.

Mercury identified with George Washington Crosby because he enjoys fixing things, but instead of clocks, Mercury fixes cars. Yes. He hopes that when he is hours away from death, all the grease, the cylinders, the pistons, the exhaust will give him ample metaphorical material for his demented mind to mull over; he hopes to learn that life gives a soul a chance to tune up. Venus says the part about a father leaving his children gave her courage to finally leave her family. Mars says the book gave him a holiday feast, he chewed the clouds and dewdrops upon which the hermit Gilbert fed; and Mars didn't even mind it when his dentures fell to the ocean floor. The book gave Uno seizures that made him bite off his tongue, so who knows--other than some penetrating omniscient narrator--what he thought of the book. And Dos and Tres agreed that every copy of the novel ought to be recalled by the government and then shot up in a rocket to begin some ecumenical, millennial, intergalactic sack race against extraterrestrials.

Come read books with the Omega Book Club. One never knows what pure delight, pleasure, and surprise arises from hanging out with a bunch of losers.

Next month's Omega Club read is THE GHOST OF MADAME YES by Madame Yes, a bizarre novel that surprised the literate world when it won the 2010 Lightman Prize.

Yet Another Revision to the Synopsis of MASQUE

Leo Song sues companies that make defective drugs. His wife, Nora is a fledgling mother of a psychotic toddler and is pregnant with a child whose paternity is uncertain. The couple, transplants to San Diego from New York City, volunteers to host a masquerade party intended to build community among the aloof parents of children at their son's preschool. An uninvited, masked woman shows up to the party and refuses to leave. She never removes her mask, and apparently she speaks no English. Speaking in Shanghainese, this stranger, who calls herself Bei Qi, tells Leo that she is his own grown daughter, she has just landed in the States from China, and she needs a place to stay.

While Leo's career hinges on messy litigation involving a scheming pharmaceutical giant, Nora's motherhood is threatened by the intrusion of this supposed daughter. Meanwhile, Bei Qi gets caught up in emotional troubles that rattle her plan. And when quiet domestic struggles sustain all the secrets and betrayal they can endure, the family uncovers a scandal that threatens the health and safety of small children who have been prescribed antipsychotic medication.

Another Revised Synopsis

Leo Song sues big financial institutions on behalf of angry investors. His wife, Nora is a fledgling mother of a feral toddler and is pregnant with a child whose paternity is uncertain. The couple, transplants to San Diego from New York City, volunteers to host a masquerade party intended to build community among the aloof parents of children at their son's private preschool. An uninvited, masked woman shows up to the party and refuses to leave. She never removes her mask because it covers her deformity, and apparently she speaks no English. Speaking in Shanghainese, this stranger, who calls herself Bei Qi, tells Leo that she is his own grown daughter, she has just landed in the States from China, and she needs a place to stay.

While Leo's career hinges on messy litigation involving a scheming foreign financial giant, Nora's motherhood is threatened by the intrusion of this supposed daughter. Meanwhile, Bei Qi gets caught up in emotional troubles that rattle her plan. And when quiet domestic struggles sustain all the secrets and betrayal they can endure, the family realizes that what is also at stake is a global identity crisis.

{Actually the end of the novel is not yet written; I have no idea what is really at stake.}

Revised Synopsis for Masque

Leo Song sues big financial institutions on behalf of angry investors. His wife, Nora is a fledgling mother of a feral toddler and is pregnant with a child whose paternity is uncertain. The couple, transplants to San Diego from New York City, volunteers to host a masquerade party intended to build community among the aloof parents of children at their son's private preschool. An uninvited, masked woman shows up to the party and refuses to leave. She never removes her mask because it covers her deformity, and apparently she speaks no English. Speaking in Cantonese, this stranger, who calls herself Bei Qi, tells Leo that she is his own grown daughter, she has just landed in the States from China, and she needs a place to stay.

While Leo's career hinges on messy litigation involving foreign financial giants, Nora's motherhood is threatened by the intrusion of this supposed daughter. Meanwhile, Bei Qi gets caught up in emotional troubles that rattle her plan. And when quiet domestic struggles sustain all the secrets and betrayal they can endure, the family realizes that what is also at stake something something something something ?????? [TK] [TK].

What is also at stake?

Reader? You have any idea?

Updated Synopsis for Masque

Leo Song is an attorney who sues big financial institutions on behalf of angry investors. His wife, Nora is a fledgling mother of a difficult toddler and is pregnant with a child whose paternity is uncertain. The couple, transplants to San Diego from New York City, volunteers to host a masquerade party to build community among the aloof parents of children at their son's private preschool. An uninvited, masked woman shows up to the party and refuses to leave. She never removes her mask because it covers her deformity, and apparently she speaks no English. Speaking in Cantonese, this stranger, who calls herself Bei Qi, tells Leo that she is his own grown daughter, she has just landed in the States from China, and she needs a place to stay.

While Leo's career hinges on messy litigation involving foreign financial giants, Nora's motherhood is threatened by the intrusion of this supposed daughter. Meanwhile, Bei Qi gets caught up in family and emotional troubles that rattle her plan. And when quiet domestic struggles sustain all the secrets and betrayal they can endure, this family realizes that what is also at stake has the power to change the value of Chinese currency.

Synopsis for Rebecca Jane's NaNo Novel

My National Novel Writing Month novel is entitled Masque.

Here's the synopsis:

Leo Song and his wife, Leanora, host a masquerade party to build community among the fancy and aloof parents of children at their son's private preschool. An uninvited, masked woman shows up to the party and refuses to leave. She never removes her mask because it covers her deformity, and apparently she speaks no English. Speaking in Cantonese, Leo learns that this stranger, who calls herself Bei Qi, is his own grown daughter, she has just landed in the States from China, and she needs a place to stay.


-----

Now I do wish that the voices that urge me to write this blog would be respectful and remain quiet so that I may concentrate more writing energy on the novel, but novel writing is so challenging, and I love finding ways to procrastinate.

NaNoWriMo Tee-Shirt

So Ginny put on her NaNoWriMo tee-shirt and lots of deoderant because writing at such a fast pace makes her sweat. She has been known to write so slowly that choosing one right word consumes her full attention for over an hour, or a day. When she was writing her second published novel, Swindler’s Night, she left a whole chapter unfinished for a month because she was laboring over one word. The right word, she eventually realized, was “cadence.” When she came up with it, she had been shopping at Trader Joe’s and she nearly poked out a fellow shopper’s eye when she whipped out her pen and notebook to write down her idea. She’s never attempted NaNoWriMo, nor has she ever forced herself to write through the un-artful first-thing-that-comes-to-mind kind of writing that others seem good at. But today, she tried it and she enjoyed the speed with which she reached 1667 words. She made it to 1800, in fact. Her characters are on the page, having a significant conversation at a beer garden. Her tale is coming into being on the page, and Ginny feels a sense of relief that it is finally getting out of her head. She is far from satisfied with the klutzy writing. The piece totally lacks cadence, but Myles can’t have gotten as far in his endeavor. His novel is probably some rambling erotica crap, Ginny wonders, but then immediately tells herself to focus on herself. Forget him, already, forget him.

Myles, dear reader, is taking a bubble bath and drinking champagne to celebrate his victory today. He’s written over 4,000 words of his erotic, legal thriller entitled Thanks Be to Godfrey. The protagonist Godfrey, a lawyer and law enforcement officer, chases his financial advisor on I-5 going South and entering Mexico, a car chase scene that rivals what we saw on TV back in June 1994 when OJ Simpson ran from cops on the San Diego Freeway near L.A. Godfrey’s nemesis rides away in a black Ford Bronco, and this inciting incident throws Godfrey to his knees. Myles is so proud of writing this scene because he feels he made it very literary and successfully rendered a thrilling car chase as a metaphor for global financial emergency. If he gives his rival novelist a single thought—which he doesn’t—he’d be thinking, “Ginny, eat my dust!”

1667 Words Per Day

Myles Smyles and Ginny Floow used to be writing buddies, but now they are writing rivals.

The two met as undergrads at UCSD, eloped in Vegas and divorced one month later. But they always remained admirers of one another's work ever since they'd been workshopping in Creative Writing 101. They continued critiquing and editing as loyal writing buddies for a whole decade after their brief marriage. Alas, a terrible misfortune turned them on each other.

Eventually, Myles grew to be the kind of writer who relies on improvisation and composing from the gut while Ginny writes according to mind maps and outlines; she researches and fact checks. But that's not the reason why these two writers have grown to despise one another. We'll get into that later.

Tonight, both writers sit grinding their teeth anticipating the serious writing work ahead. Both writers plan to participate in this year's National Novel Writing Month. Both writers have their pen's poised. This year hundreds of thousands of writers out there will be taking this 50,000 words in one month lightly; they enjoy writing for the hell of it, the fun of it, the literary abandon. Myles and Ginny, on the other hand, are in this for blood. Neither writer will rest until he or she has outwritten, outworded, outstoried the opponent.

In her quiet Study, Ms. Floow is prepared for National Novel Writing Month. For the past few weeks, three main characters have been doing lots of talking, moving, acting, thinking, loving, hating, eating, shitting, dressing, making their beds, etc. etc. inside Ginny's head. She has been sitting at her writing desk with her notebook open, completing writing prompts, watching her characters engage in whatever activities the prompts prompt. She has mind mapped and highlighted and has note-taken in the margins, Tonight she will sleep with her outline beneath her pillow.

Her opponent, Mr. Smyles is just as prepared. Myles has been WiFi-ing in coffee shops and beer gardens all over San Diego, He's been playing fast and loose with the "What If..."game, has engaged in dreamstorming and diving headlong into the white-hot center of his unconscious. He's come up with sordid but lovable characters and a plot for an erotic, legal thriller. The sensualist in him is on high alert--his skin pulses: Code Orange. Now he writes about lips pulling away from a straw of slurped lemonade. Now he writes about fingers feeling for change in a deep pocket. He will sleep with another whore tonight while he recites the words to his favorite novel, Finnegans Wake, in his sleep. He's going to write a novel called, Thanks Be to Godfrey, about a guy named Godfrey. He's dreamt that the opening line of the opening chapter goes something like, "Godfrey be nimble. Godfrey be quick. Godfrey jump over your financial advisor's dick!"

At midnight on November 1, Ms. Ginny Floow and Mr. Myles Smyles will proceed to write rival novels. Place your bets, folks; it's going to be an exciting race. What do you think? Which writer will win? On your mark! Get set!

Piper's Father

damn boots! Every morning I squeeze my whole life into Steel Toe. For what? Roxy says the trash covers me so thick she can't find my dick. She'll leave me soon, too. And I'll be alone again. The kids hate me. Women think I am trash just because I collect it for a living. To hell with everybody. Yeah, I could boast that I've still got one son-of-a-bitch pal that sticks with me: Migraines. I've learned to make these headaches my friend because before the awful Pain sets in, I know ecstasy; I have this vision. I am always welcomed to enter a garden made of glass. The grass is green shards that I am able to walk over without getting cut. I walk through the garden. Moonlight reflects off a glass water fall. A kind woman with long, red hair made of glass takes my hand and says, "Breathe." Her hand doesn't shatter when I hold it. That feels so nice. Hell, it's the only chance for me to get something true and pure and beautiful, makes a man feel alive. Then the vision escapes me, and I suffer. I lower into the depths of the sofa with my whole body clenched like the devil's bleeding fist. When the pain leaves me, I get ready for work. Curse you head, and I stuff my feet into these

Piper's Mum

She folded her sister Boo's letter into its envelope, then she picked up the phone. "I must see her, Boo." She said into the receiver, though she hadn't even dialed a phone number.

Piper's mother had assumed Piper was preparing to get married, and she wanted to see Piper before the big day to pass on all the secrets of The Absent Mama Legacy before Piper had a chance to start a family of her own. Boo's letter mentioned that Piper was making a wedding dress. Of glass. Piper would be turning thirty now, right? Who was she going to marry, her mother wondered, that singing coach whom she had fucked in high school? Though she may have disappeared from Piper's life, her mother knew an excellent card reader. She was sure she knew more about Piper than Piper did.

Now that Piper was getting married, she wanted to see her to tell her that it was Piper's duty to have children and then abandon them.

Piper Kincaid didn't know she had come from a long line of mothers who abandon their children, a tradition that dated way back, possibly before the days of Hansel and Gretel.

Some of the first abandoning mothers had done it on doorsteps of neighbors or at churches. Later, the fashion became leaving your infant in dumpsters of empty city alleys. These past few generations, abandonments turned more sophisticated: a mother stayed on with her brood for a few years, then made a quick exit, leaving Daddy with little ones who couldn't yet wipe their noses. Other abandoners got super demanding occupations, like being a suffragist or a lawyer, and forgot about the kids, though they were right under her feet. But Piper's mother wasn't like any other mothers. She made her exit after her eldest was eighteen years old! She had made motherhood into a long acting career; she'd pretended to enjoy mothering for eighteen years before she disappeared, leaving Quinn, her boy, and Piper, her pubescentl girl. This Mum patted herself on the back for sticking around long enough and then escaping just at the time when she'd have to give that awful birds and bees talk. She'd never been good with words; she'd mess up the sex talk anyway. Besides, she told herself, this Mrs. Kincaid's exit had been so dap. There had been headaches and spousal conflict and broken glass--the stuff that good novels are made of! Hey, Hansel and Gretel's Mama, or Cinderella's Mama: eat your hearts out! Mama Kincaid was surely the Queen of Abandoning her Children.

When Mama Kincaid finally did return to Quimby in her Mother-of-the-Bride floral attire, she fell to her knees and wanted to shatter her own heartless chest to discover herself facing Piper's best friend, Rebecca O'Leary, who wept as she embraced an urn full of Piper's ashes.

Breast cancer?

Mama Kincaid held her face in her hands and said, "Oh, my sweet daughter!" She'd never before used that word when thinking of or describing the girl she'd given birth to. "Oh, my sweet daughter." She repeated as if she didn't believe that voice were her own.

After that, no one knows what came of Mum Kincaid. Boo didn't hear from her ever again. And we can assume that she fired her Psychic.

The Wine of Astonishment

I read Margaret Ronda's poetry this morning and again this afternoon and this evening. And the sky that had fallen on a clutch of baby chicks lifted and whirled and opened. The weather these past few weeks in San Diego has brought gloom and clouds and uncharacteristic thunder and lightening. This makes the people slouched in the waiting room sit up and say, "Oh. Was that thunder?" And when I read Ms. Ronda's lines about looking upon the sun as the wine of astonishment, I pause my life cartwheeling before my eyes. I pause. To contemplate. Sky. Element. Light. Cloud. Pitch. Loam.

Then, I sit down to break bread with The First Person. A reliable Narrative Voice. Mum scoops spoonfuls of mush into my mouth. I gag on language and pull a face. Someone says grace after we eat. Someone gives thanks for words that un/canny. Soon I will steady my writing fist and scold that mysterious bird caller, "I must stop ignoring my eyes."

Margaret Ronda's words complicate meal journey potty time mucus, color laundry, pile toys, befriend, sinister routine, habit clouds, bark, and disappear me. Reading her words falls the Rain? And San Diego needs rain. Oh, how we Give Us This Day Our Rain!

I listen. Friends. You sit rainstorms away wiping facefuls of breaded puree?

Her wrists, are they pulsing now with wild, intimate, preened feathers? I lean my ear to her Coast.

Footfalls and callings away pass through. Dark disguises itself as sunset. Light plays dress up with Night. Makes wonder coherent to the strangely dressed lady who is reading on the park bench while the past-your-bedtime orphans invent games on the playground that is built over the old graveyard in Mission Hills. The reading lady lifts her hand and jubilantly cries out, as if she is buying rounds in a pub: "My treat: one poem for every laborer who helped move the headstones and the fog to the new graveyard in Old Town! And one for everyone who built this playground!" She wishes to celebrate, but not alone.

Nobody gives thought to those still buried here. Here are your children, your stomp stomp, your wild rumpus, your monkey callers. The revelers come every day to mash grapes and pour wine over the monkey bars and down the slides until the bucket swings floodeth over. A vintage from coastal Gleeyards with velvety layers of sorrow spice and bliss berries. Cheers! Here's to the Poet and to Astonishment!